SAN DIEGO — U.S. border officials on Thursday said that plans to construct two new 30-foot border barriers through the historic Friendship Park would be temporarily paused in response to an outcry from local community groups and more than a dozen members of Congress.
The binational park located along the U.S.-Mexico border between Imperial Beach and Playas de Tijuana has been a meeting place for families for decades — an area where people on opposite sides of the border can reunite.
Since 2019, the park has been closed to the public.
Friends of Friendship Park, a group that advocates for access to the park, held a vigil and news conference last week calling on Border Patrol to delay the planned construction until the community could fully understand the project.
“We have heard concerns about the project as currently planned, and it is important to me to be responsive to the local community on this issue,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a statement Thursday. “I look forward to continued conversations with the community regarding this project during the pause.”
CBP, the parent agency to Border Patrol, said it “has paused all primary and secondary border barrier construction in the area immediately surrounding Friendship Park ... to engage with community stakeholders and to discuss the planned construction to rebuild barrier sections requiring repair in this area.”
“We consider this a step in the right direction,” said John Fanestil of the Friends of Friendship Park. “We look forward to hearing from CBP and U.S. Border Patrol staff. We hope that our request for a pause of 120 days will be honored, and that this will lead to authentic conversation and collaboration with the many stakeholders of Friendship Park.”
The plans to replace the aging double fence near Friendship Park come despite President Joe Biden’s executive order on his first day in office ceasing all Trump administration border wall construction.
“There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration. Not another foot,” he said back in August 2020. The Biden administration recently reversed course, saying some Trump-era border structures were necessary for safety, and began work to close four wide gaps in the wall near Yuma.
The work at Friendship Park would not add more feet of border structure but would replace existing lower barrier with new, taller ones in the same design that the Trump administration favored.
Friends of Friendship Park began raising concerns about the planned border wall construction at Friendship Park, which lies at the southwestern-most corner of the United States, after they say Border Patrol officials told them in a meeting earlier this year that the design didn’t include pedestrian gates to access the park.
In the statement released Thursday, the agency said it will continue allowing access to the park.
“CBP is committed to preserving access to Friendship Park and, upon completion of the barrier construction in the Friendship Park area, CBP is committed to opening the park a minimum of two days each month, allowing members of the public back into the park for the first time since 2019,” the statement read.
Fanestil said Thursday’s statement from CBP was a response to “a vast and growing groundswell of support.”
“Friendship Park is a cultural treasure and a symbol of the border that so many people know and love. It is a place of unique and enduring value not just to the people of San Diego and Tijuana, but to the peoples of the Californias and of the entire U.S.-Mexico border region,” he said.
Rep. Juan Vargas was among the 15 congressmembers who recently put pressure on the Department of Homeland Security to pause construction plans near Friendship Park. The group wrote letters to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas last month.
Vargas said he was pleased with the latest developments and urged CBP to work with local stakeholders to preserve access to the park.
“Since its inauguration in 1971, Friendship Park has been a testament to the U.S.-Mexico relationship and has allowed families to come together,” he wrote in a statement. “The proposed projects would bar public access to Friendship Park, preventing it from serving communities on both sides of the border.”
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